Question

A researcher wants to examine the impact of internet use on heart rate. Students are asked how much they used the internet the hour prior to beginning the study and then grouped into three categories( 31-60 minutes per hour, 1-30 minutes per hour, and no internet use.) The researcher then measured their heartbeat per minute. Assume a two-tailed test and .05 level of significance.

Is this an experiment or a correlation? Why?

Answer 1

The researcher in the above experiment has exercised the correlation method. Correlation refers to understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between two variables. In the above case, the researcher wants to understand the impact or the effect of internet use on heart rate. Internet use in the independent variable and heart rate is the dependent variable. The researcher computes the two-tailed test to measure whether the independent variable correlates positively or negatively with the dependent variable. A .05 level of significance proves that there is a positive correlation between internet use on heart rate. As the use of internet increases, the effect on the heart rate also increases, which suggests it is a possitive correlation.